Site Mobile Navigation

Islanders Lose Ticket To Playoffs

The Islanders can trot out that sports-worn lament for the third straight year. They were eliminated from post-season contention tonight after losing yet another game in the final five minutes, this one by 3-1 to the Montreal Canadiens, who broke a 1-1 tie on Shayne Corson's goal with 4 minutes 33 seconds to play.

It was just the seventh goal of the season for Corson, who had to be helped off the ice and into the dressing room earlier in the third period after drawing a penalty on a knee-to-knee collision with Claude Lapointe.

The Canadiens did not score on that power play, but Corson sure did on the one stemming from a penalty to Steve Webb, who was called for slashing Jassen Cullimore with 5 minutes to play.

It was the second power-play goal of the night for Montreal -- the Islanders went 0 for 6 with a man advantage and are now 0 for 16 in their last three games -- and it gave the Canadiens a 2-1 lead before Martin Rucinsky added an empty-netter with 59.6 seconds remaining.

''There should be a very sick feeling in their stomachs,'' Islander Coach Rick Bowness said of his players, who are 0 for April after getting back into playoff contention in March. ''And that's what has to motivate them all summer and every day next year, so that they don't get that sick feeling again.''

The Islanders (28-40-12) had to win their final three games and then hope for something miraculous to make the playoffs. But tonight's defeat, in front of their new owner, John Spano, and before 11,876 at Nassau Coliseum, extended the team's streak for April to 5 games, 0-4-1.

There are myriad reasons the Islanders can point to when they try to figure out exactly why they did not make the playoffs.

Their ineffective power play was one (the Islanders went 0 for 11 in their last two games, both against Montreal, the worst penalty-killing team in the league). Another was the Islanders' season-long inability to defeat the Canadiens, who swept their four meetings.

But most telling of all were the 13 games this season the Islanders lost in the last five minutes of regulation or overtime. ''I think the biggest problem we had all year was our power play,'' Bowness said. ''We were losing those points because our power play didn't produce. Tonight was a perfect example.''

Bowness had given the Islanders the morning skate off, hoping that they would bring their excitement into tonight and not leave it at the rink before noon.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

But there the Islanders were again, all tightened up and trailing by 1-0 after two periods -- their playoff lives on the line -- just as in Montreal two nights earlier.

And once again, they were trailing because of an early Vladimir Malakhov goal and that thoroughly anemic power-play.

Malakhov has come out of obscurity to haunt his former team. Before Monday, the enigmatic defenseman had not scored a goal since Feb. 25 and had only three assists in that span. But Malakhov had a goal and an assist on the game-winner in Monday's crushing 2-1 victory.

And Malakhov knocked home a rebound with the Canadiens skating with a two-man advantage tonight, 18:36 into the game.

That goal looked as if it would stand up. Bowness was frantically mixing and matching his lines, looking for an effective combination. All the while, the Islanders' power play was coming up short over and over.

But Lapointe, always a pain to the Canadiens since his days as a member of the Quebec Nordiques, resuscitated the Islanders' post-season hopes, if only for a while, at 18:14 of the final period with a short-handed goal set up by Randy Wood.

Once again, a third-period goal had delayed the inevitable. Then Corson came through, and the Islanders are headed for their third early summer in a row.

''It's not a good feeling,'' said Bryan McCabe, when asked if his inexperienced team can learn something from the end of this season. ''I guess we will learn from it. But I'd rather be in the playoffs to learn from that.''